Welcome To The Home Of Yue-Sai-Kan
Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo
Walking into someone else’s house can be an eye-opening experience.
So it is with Yue-Sai Kan, the person who People magazine dubbed “the most famous woman in China” and Time called “the Queen of the Middle Kingdom.” Her Kaka‘ako apartment is on a whole other level.
It’s not because of the sweeping, picturesque views of the Honolulu city skyline or the pristine white surfaces without a single speck of dust. It’s the energy of the room that speaks to a life well-lived — and a person well-loved.
Photographs of smiling faces line the hallway; achievement after achievement glisten in their frames; art pieces from all over the world decorate the airy space. A pure silver couch with detailed engravings of lions and elephants is stationed by the floor-to-ceiling windows. A side table made of a rare, millions-year-old fossilized stone imported from Indonesia sits next to that. The rest of the furniture, unique but not loud in aesthetic, similarly conveys quiet luxury and an acute attention to detail.
Despite her worldly travels, Hawaiʻi is home for Kan. The Brigham Young University–Hawaiʻi alumna sold nearly all of her houses worldwide from Australia and Brazil to Beijing and Changsha in China, deciding to keep her Kakaʻako abode because of the peace and comfort it brings her (despite the high real estate taxes, she says).
As Kan clips the microphone to her flowy, button-down dress with practiced ease, she lounges comfortably on her couch like she’s at a casual get-together with friends instead of an interview with MidWeek.
“I hope that by doing what I do, people understand each other more,” Kan says. “Right now we have such a divided country. People have such strange ideas about so many things because we don’t understand each other. And that’s my wish: to help. Whatever I can do, I want to make sure that the world understands each other, that people understand each other better.”
She speaks slowly with intention and a kind of self-assurance that comes from her years of experience talking to people worldwide. This is the home and presence of Yue-Sai Kan, a woman who knows that when she speaks, people will listen.
And they have, for decades.
Since the 1970s, the Emmy awardee has captivated audiences in China, the United States and elsewhere with her quick sense of humor and gift of gab. As a Chinese-American woman, she wanted to present Asian culture to the American audience, while also exposing Chinese citizens to the world outside of China. Her hopes of encouraging cultural understanding were not in vain. Her viewership over the years soared to more than 300 million viewers weekly. This accomplishment earned Kan a new moniker: The most watched woman in the world.
Kan’s current nonprofit, Yue-Sai Kan One World Foundation, continues her broadcasting legacy. The foundation aims to spark cross-cultural curiosity through social media videos and other content. The first episode was filmed at Kualoa Ranch and explores traditional Native Hawaiian taro farming methods. (Check it out at youtube.com/@oneworldfdtn.)
“This is my home,” Kan says of her decision to film the first episode at Kualoa. “I’m here in Hawaiʻi, so I started filming here.”
The demand for Kan’s content remains high, as the foundation’s long-form content on YouTube alone reached one million followers in just one year (that’s more than 2,730 people per day).
Born in Guilin, China and raised in Hong Kong, Kan came to Hawaiʻi to pursue music at BYU–Hawaiʻi in Lāʻie.
As a student, the then-19-year-old Kan entered her very first pageant in Hawaiʻi through the Chinese Chamber of Commerce’s Narcissus Flower Beauty Pageant. She was crowned a princess. This experience eventually led her to become national director of Miss Universe China and to run multiple beauty pageants, coaching girls to use their beauty as a tool for change.
“I used to tell the girls, ‘You should use your beauty to do something. It’s a gift — a gift! Tell me, what did you do for (this beauty)? Nothing! You should be thankful every single day,’” Kan says with a laugh.
Using her own gifts in beauty, Kan created Yue-Sai Cosmetics in 1992. It was the first cosmetics brand that was specifically tailored to Chinese features and skin tones. The brand quickly became the No. 1 cosmetics brand in China and remains a highly recognized brand today.
Following her entrepreneurial spirit, Kan opened The House of Yue-Sai, China’s first luxury interior design brand, in Shanghai in 2008. The shop sold everything from glassware, furniture, jewelry, napkins printed with witty sayings, Taiwanese teas — anything that would make a house into a personalized home.
“What I wanted to do was to introduce interior design to China, because at that time, the Chinese had no idea what interior design was,” Kan explains. “The Chinese thought that interior design means, ‘Now I have a house, so I’m going to buy a TV, and then I’m going to buy two chairs. And that’s interior design.’”
Despite her shop’s popularity, Kan shuttered the doors of House of Yue-Sai a mere year later.
“I could only open it for a year because I was really sick that whole year,” Kan recalls. “I remember the day of the opening. I fainted and I was found on the ground because I was working so hard to put it together. There were months that I could not possibly even open my mouth. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t talk for three months.”
Troubled, Kan sought counsel from her lifelong mentor and friend, Norman Arens. Arens, a well-known astrologer, told Kan that if she continued with the shop, her illness would only worsen. Kan’s response was immediate.
“I said, ‘Oh my god! OK, I’m going to close it,” Kan reenacts.
True to her word, she wrapped business within the year, rehomed the items (several of them now live in her Kakaʻako apartment) and her health improved. Despite the initial threat to her health, Kan doesn’t regret the venture at all.
“I did the House of Yue-Sai because there was a need for it. I usually don’t do anything unless there is a need for it,” she explains. “And then you can make some impact. If it has no impact, then it’s a big waste of time.”
To date, Kan has written 11 books, including her English memoir The Most Famous Woman in China.
As of late, the best-selling author says that her life is “devoted to charity.” Pulling up the calendar on her phone, she runs through it, listing event after event from grand dinners to galas, at least one for every month, that she’s actively involved in.
In May, she’s celebrating the centennial anniversary of China Institute of America, the oldest nonprofit organization promoting Chinese culture, which she serves as chair for. In June, she is holding her charity event, Women Who Dared, an event to “highlight Asian women that are very, very smart and they really do great things,” she says. (Learn more at yuesaikanoneworldfoundation.org.)
A stronghold for her three younger sisters and the people who she includes on her “E.F. List” (Extended Family List), Kan ensures that she shows up where and when it matters. Whether it be wedding preparations, a much-needed, last-minute doctor appointment, or just a cry for company, Kan gets it done. Even as someone who has experienced luxury in the truest sense, Kan cites her loved ones as the most valuable thing in her life.
“I’m not sentimental about anything of material,” she explains. “If tomorrow, say I lose a very expensive watch, I’m not going to kill myself over it. A lot of people get very upset about those things, but I don’t … I think (my loved ones) are the ones that make life so fun. I travel with my dear friends a lot. They just make life so much more nice. I value them very much,” she says.
To Kan, making a difference isn’t limited to the brightest and best. Doing so is accessible to anyone. It’s a matter of finding the right method.
“We each are a point of light. And when we are together, we can really light up the universe,” Kan advises. “But if you’re not even lighting your point of light, no matter how small it is, then you’re not doing the right thing.”
The final pieces of life advice from the Queen of the Middle Kingdom can be spotted on her coffee table. They’re printed on three napkins, neatly tucked under a freshly made cappuccino.
The first reads in bold lettering, “A true friend remembers your birthday but not which one.”
The second states, “I can resist anything … except temptation!”
And the third?
“No rich man is ugly!”
